You never know what type of personal tailoring you'll find on a game-used jersey.
Case in point: Thursday night's auction at Huggins & Scott featured an Earl Weaver jersey with a pocket — that runs through his number 4 — to put his smokes inside. The incredible custom piece sold for $3,240.
It's one of a couple jerseys from the Orioles manager the auction house has sold in recent years.
"If it doesn't have the smoking pocket, you have to be careful," said Huggins and Scott's director of operation Matt Flores.
The jersey is signed by Weaver with the inscriptions "HOF '96," "1480 W, 1080 L," "1970 World Series champs" "2x Manager of the Year," and "97 Ejections."
The jersey is from the 1979 season, in which the Orioles went 102-57. Baltimore won the AL pennant, but lost in the World Series that year to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Weaver, who managed the Orioles for 15 seasons (1968-1982, 1985-1986), started smoking in 1948, his first year in organized baseball.
"They made smoking look so good," Weaver told the Miami News in 1980. "After a ballgame, you were dirty and sweaty and smoking a cigarette looked like instant peace."
The 5-foot-6 Weaver, known for bodying up to umpires and yelling in their faces, always seemed hot. He was ejected 97 times, which works out to about once a month during his managerial years.
"It's a dirty, nasty, expensive habit, but it relieves the tension," Weaver said. "When the Yankees come back tonight, I'll light up a cigarette automatically."
Major League Baseball banned cigarette smoking during Weaver's time, but he'd get away with it by walking into the tunnel or out of view of the TV cameras. In 1969, he was fined $200 for smoking in the dugout. The next game, he came out with his lineup card and walked up to the ump who fined him with a candy cigarette in his mouth.
In 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General first said smoking could lead to lung cancer and heart disease.
"If he said it (in 1948), I might not have started," Weaver told the Miami News.
Weaver quit smoking in 1998 at the age of 68 after he had a heart attack. He died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 82 in 2013.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.